Parking brake failure on the 2007 Toyota Camry
3 crashes 2 injuries 5 of the 35 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When parking brake failure gets reported
Owners of the 2007 Toyota Camry report parking brake failure at a median of 40,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles, from 29 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 18th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 12,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 170,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 156,243 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
24% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12,557 miles | 39,328 miles | 39,500 miles | 84,000 miles | 168,800 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 3 a crash and 2 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,300 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2006, at a median of 3 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2007 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Tl*the contact owns a 2007 toyota camry le. While driving 65 MPH, the contact activated the cruise control. She accelerated to 75 MPH while attempting to pass a vehicle with the cruise control still activated. The contact attempted to decelerate by tapping the brake pedal to release the cruise control. After three to four attempts, the cruise control failed to shut off. The vehicle felt as if it would accelerate and the cruise control remain activated. The vehicle began decelerating once her foot remained on the brake pedal, otherwise, if she were to release the pedal, the vehicle would accelerate again. The contact pulled off the road, applied the emergency brake, and shut off the vehicle. When she restarted the vehicle, it began operating normally, however she did not activate the cruise control again. The toyota dealer could not locate the cause of failure. A couple of weeks later, a mechanic inspected the vehicle and also found no failure. The current mileage is 16,700 and failure mileage was 16,000.
Tl*the contact owns a 2007 toyota camry. While parking the vehicle, the gear shift indicator became stuck in the neutral position. There were no warning indicators. The vehicle was pushed and the parking brake was applied. The vehicle had to be towed. The dealer diagnosed the failure as the flange nut coming off the vehicle. The vehicle has been repaired. The failure mileage was 1,000 and the current mileage was 1,550.
Tl*the contact owns a 2007 toyota camry. While at a stop sign with the brake pedal depressed, the pedal extends to the floorboard. The contact had to remove his foot from the brake pedal in order for it to return to its normal position. The vehicle has been taken to approximately three dealers, but they could not determine the cause of the failure. The contact filed case number 200801100060 with toyota. The current mileage was 12,000 and failure mileage was 6,000. Updated 04/23/08 *bf the consumer stated emergency brake goes all the way to the floor and the dealer stated because of the particular brake system and that was normal. Updated 04/23/08 *tr
Also reported on the 2007 Toyota Camry
Other visibility problem
Other body or interior problem
Other speed control problem
Excessive oil consumption
Other engine problem
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 35 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does parking brake failure happen on the 2007 Toyota Camry?
Across 29 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 40,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 85,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is parking brake failure on the 2007 Toyota Camry?
35 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed